


Fleeting

by quartzguts



Series: bad things happen (mostly to noct) [3]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Gen, Hurt Noctis Lucis Caelum, Possible Character Death, Stabbing, coughing up blood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-04
Updated: 2020-01-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:34:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22116457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quartzguts/pseuds/quartzguts
Summary: As long as he keeps running, Noctis will be fine. He just has to make it back to camp, where Ignis will patch him up and Gladio will take care of the men.
Series: bad things happen (mostly to noct) [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1550269
Kudos: 77
Collections: Bad Things Happen Bingo





	Fleeting

**Author's Note:**

> a short one for bad things happen bingo. prompt is coughing up blood

Noctis can't breathe. He also can't stop running, because if he slows down for even a second they'll catch up to him. All the men have are daggers and swords: no guns, no grenades. As long as he keeps running, Noctis will be fine. He just has to make it back to camp, where Ignis will patch him up and Gladio will take care of the men.

Of course, that's looking less and less likely. Noctis's head is spinning and his vision is starting to go fuzzy. He desperately tries to suck some more precious air into his lungs, but the motion brings out a cough, and then another. He covers his mouth with a hand while the other presses against the hole in his chest. Noctis keeps running, stumbling over branches and stones, as he involuntarily tries to hack up a lung. When the horrible tightness in his throat finally dies down, he looks at his hand and grimaces. There's blood sticking to his palm. Another weak cough has some more dribbling down his chin.

He hears what might be a gunshot, but the sound is faint and Noctis might have simply imagined it. He doesn't hear the sound again. That might mean nothing, though, because there's blood roaring in his ears, drowning everything else out. He clutches at the wound in his chest, the wound from the knife that had been driven into him the moment he'd turned 'round a large tree to check a patch of Leiden peppers. It had been stupid to go out on his own in the middle of the night, but he hadn't been able to sleep and listening to Gladio's easy snores and Prompto's blissful sleeptalking had been something close to hell.

He's done this before, anyway. Every time he'd tried to sneak back into camp undetected Ignis had been waiting up for him. The last time, he'd told Noctis it was a bad idea to head out this late, and that he should at least go with Prompto if he was truly determined to put himself in danger. Noctis hadn't listened.

If he manages to get back at all, he'll let Ignis say "I told you so" for the rest of their lives.

Blood gushes out of the wound again, as another erratic beat of his heart pushes it through the spliced arteries. He can't stifle the bleeding while he's moving. Instead, his hand merely twitches around the gorey wound as his shirt becomes wet and gross.

Another coughing fit overtakes him, and with it comes more blood on his hand, his lips, his shirt. With a short laugh, Noctis wonders if he'll die here. It isn't perfect - he should have died in Insomnia at his father's side - but it's close. Another breathless laugh comes out, but it quickly turns into a sob, then a cough. His dad died with dignity while fighting the enemy to protect his kingdom. Noctis will die in the middle of nowhere, the result of a stab wound inflicted by a person he didn't even see.

He doesn't really want that, though. What he wants is to curl up by the fire with Prompto, while Ignis makes them a late night snack and Gladio tells Noctis he's proud of him. He wants it so desperately he can scarcely think. So he keeps running. Still coughing. Still bleeding.

If this is what the first week of his kingship has in store for him, he's dreading to see what the rest of his reign will be like.

 _If you live to see it_ , his inner voice chimes.

He hacks up what must be half the blood left in his body while his collapsed lung screams at him. He tries to breathe, but all that comes out is a stuttered wheeze. He stumbles, his hand shooting out to grab onto something to hoist himself up, but his vision goes black and before he knows it he's on the ground, coughing and wheezing, his limbs screaming from the lack of oxygen and his blood seeping into the earth. A particularly hard cough takes him. Blood splatters out in front of his face. His head swims. He curses himself for not listening to Ignis, for letting his guard down, for dropping his phone when he tried to call Gladio a few minutes back and not stopping to pick it up.

Noctis shudders and curls in on himself. He can hear his heart thudding, trying to shoulder the weight of his failing lung and keep him alive. All it succeeds in doing is pumping more blood out of his body. He can't breathe at all anymore, but it doesn't matter because he's losing consciousness. Somewhere far away, he thinks he hears footsteps and a familiar voice shouting " _Noct!_ " but then it all fades away. His last conscious thought is _please, I don't want to leave them, not yet. Not ever._


End file.
